Prehistoric Clock (8 page)

Verity leaned over to help him. “Baryonyx! That’s
it
. Well done, Billy.” Touching his shoulder, she read on, “A piscivorous predator from the early Cretaceous.” The three of them glanced over at Briory, who pouted and walked off with an
hmmpf.
She’d have loved to hear Reardon’s mumbled words of victory, but Billy tapped the page, eager for her to continue. She scanned the text for facts they didn’t already know about the monster, while promising herself she’d study the whole book later. “Piscivorous means ‘fish-eater’…the baryonyx swipes at fish with its powerful claw…like a grizzly bear. It lays four to six eggs. Scientists think it might—”

“Forget the homework.” Reardon leaned over the side, thrust his arm out. “There they are! On the shore—big as life.”

A wasps’ nest stirred in Embrey’s stomach. These extraordinary animals were bigger than anything above the waves in the twentieth century, and they were also deadlier. If they attacked London again, or this airship whilst it was in dock, the loss of life could be catastrophic. The beach lay a little over a mile from the camp. If dinosaurs were at all territorial—he’d encountered firsthand the violent reactions of South American predators against interlopers in their marked territory—these monsters
would
return to London sooner or later.

They lumbered back and forth across the black and grey beach, taking turns to eat from a rhinoceros-sized carcass while the other guarded the meal. Neither paid any mind to the
Empress.
At five hundred feet up, the airship would be like just another cloud.

Tangeni approached from the bow. “Lord Embrey, have you heard? The professor, he says this is all fresh water. A giant
etale
from ancient times. That is good news, no?”

“Tremendous news! I daresay a big piece of our survival puzzle is solved.” He gazed aft along the deck to where Reardon and Billy were busy reading a book with Verity Champlain. The wasps roused again. Being
persona non grata
under
her
command, the tainted strawberry tart, stung his heart. He despised feeling helpless as much as he hated her magnanimity. If his name offended her so much, she needn’t have allowed him on board the
Empress
at all. The fact that she had, and that he’d accepted, slighted him more and more as he thought on it. Trapped was not the word—he was in purgatory. No one wanted him here. He was the prehistoric pariah. And Captain Champlain had become the icy figurehead for the empire’s unforgiving rule—a rule that had cost him everything.

“God Almighty! Why does she make me so angry?” He clasped his hands behind his head and pressed the palms into his scalp.

“
Eembu
has that way with her.” Tangeni’s probing stare seemed to pick apart Embrey’s agony like clockwork. “She almost make married two years ago, to the young vizier governing Zanzibar—a man of great intelligence—but the Sultan’s rebels attacked him days before the wedding. When she learned of the plot,
Eembu
swam to his island home to warn him but she was too late. He died in her arms, poisoned, and the assassins, they were caught by the British Navy. That night,
Eembu
sneaked aboard the ship and slit their throats one by one, then threw their bodies to the sharks. For this she receive three-month suspension from the admiralty.” Tangeni swallowed a lump in his throat. “Of all the men and women I’ve served with, no one faces
oshipongo
—danger—like she. Lieutenant Champlain has no compromise. That is why she makes you angry.”

“I see.” Embrey glanced again at the ginger-haired captain, who was now laughing with Reardon and young Billy. For a few warm moments, all ill-will evaporated from the airship, and he felt like walking over to her and straightening this whole thing out. Any animus between them had been created by proxy, by pride. They could easily cast it aside if they wished.

A chill gust raked the deck, snapped him back to his senses. He watched the two dinosaurs squabble needlessly over their prize on the beach.

“I’m afraid my wound runs even deeper.” He patted Tangeni’s shoulder. “My own country has turned against me, brother—it won’t rest until it has extinguished my family name altogether.”

“I have heard. A terrible thing, to be hated by one’s own tribe. But Professor Reardon believes in you, and so does young Billy. As for
Eembu
, she wears her sister’s memory like war paint—it reminds her that she lives for two, and also fights for two. You are the closest she has come to finding, what is the word? Avenging?”

“Vengeance?”

“Yes. She will treat you as an enemy until you can convince her to believe in you.”

Embrey scrubbed his face with his hands. “I may need some help there, brother. But I tell you what, you can let Lieutenant Champlain know that I’m willing to forgive the unprovoked blow she struck, on one condition—”

“And that is?”

He swung round and almost swiped her with his elbow.

Luckily, she ducked. “Of all the clumsy, skull-faced…”

Maybe not so lucky.

“My apologies,” he stuttered.

The woman’s pursed lips held venom. “Well?” she snapped. “You were saying? You would deign to forgive my wholly
warranted
affront on one condition?”

“Yes, one condition. That you shuffle up and down the deck on your arse whilst singing ‘Burlington Bertie From Bow.’” He stood tall, glared back with interest. “What’s wrong? Feel like hitting me again?” Offering his chin felt a tad much, but
Jesus,
she was infuriating.

“How about throwing you over the side, fop?” Several crewmen and the two statuesque women now stood behind her, meaning she couldn’t possibly back down.

Neither would he.

“You talk a good game, Red. How does the rest of it go? ‘I flap my lips and you drown in spit’? Pathetic. You’re a pantomime king in petticoats—the least you can do is wear them.”

“One more word and you’ll dangle from the keel. Follow in your father’s footsteps…or should I say his last dance.”

“
Whore!”

“Bastard.”

He drew both his pistols and thrust them at her heart. “Say that again.”

She reached nonchalantly over her shoulder and kept her hand there until a crewman passed her a revolver. Without even breaking her stare, she cocked the hammer with her thumb and pointed the gun at his forehead. “This is getting tiresome. Djimon, Tangeni, lock this traitor in the brig.”

“
Eembu
?”

“Don’t argue with me. He’s not about to shoot. He doesn’t have it in him. His sort whispers treason from the shadows, sends others to do his dirty work. The rich only stay rich because they don’t get involved in the fighting they start. Look, you can see it in his yellow eyes. Like father, like—”

“Enough!”
Embrey sidestepped quickly. In one fluid motion he dropped one of his own pistols, dragged her flush against him and disarmed the bitch. Back to the bulwark, he held a pistol barrel to her temple and yelled, “Back off! All of you.”

“Do it. But he’s bluffing,” she advised her crew—correctly. Unbearably. Did
nothing
faze her?

His situation was impossible and he had nowhere to go. Better to live and fight another day than force the crew’s hand.
Okay, Garrett, you lose this round.
His pulse hacked at his right shoulder, leaving him breathless. He lowered his sidearm and the bitch eased herself free.

An overhead cable snapped and the airship lurched to port, hurling Verity into him again. Her momentum threw them both over the rail. Embrey tossed his weapon onto the deck and snatched for the bulwark. Too late! His fingers slipped and he plummeted.

Verity’s arms wrenched tight around his solar plexus, mashed up against his rib cage. The jolt of her catch punched the breath from his lungs. A million flecks of diamond dust from the waves below blinded him. Somewhere inside the shock, distant bird caws competed with a close, intermittent hiss.

“Swallow it,” she demanded into his ear hole. “I can’t hold you much longer. My legs…they’re wrapped round…the rail.
Embrey, do you hear me?
You need to…climb up me.”

The
Empress
lurched again. Verity’s grasp slipped to crooked fingertips. They shook with the strain, and Embrey felt as though his invisible lifebelt was ripping loose. The diamond grave called imperceptibly. The soft fabric of her blouse caressed his cheek. It stayed death with a tickle, beckoning him from his daze.

“Verity?” The airship listed badly and seemed to be in freefall. He anchored his arms around her bare waist, then reached up and hoisted himself up by her jodhpurs. “Hold on,” he told her, “I’m almost there.”

Tangeni and Reardon gripped her half chaps. High above, a formation of five enormous birds scythed between the balloons. Their bites at the canopies rocked the entire ship. They were piercing the ballonets. Embrey heaved himself up into Reardon’s grasp, and two more aeronauts arrived to haul him aboard.

“Look out!” a cry came from above—from Philomena perched in the bough nest, fending off the monstrous birds with her grappling pole.

Embrey followed her gaze low to the port bow, where a rogue flier had begun its unstoppable climb for Verity. Its wingspan had to be around forty feet—more like a dragon’s than a bird’s—but the flapping membrane was translucent and wafer thin.

Pterosaurs!

Several aeronauts emerged from B-deck toting rifles, but the
Empress’s
violent shudder spilled them into each other. A familiar
hiss-crack
sounded from somewhere aft. Immediately the pterosaur flinched as a fresh hole appeared in the middle of its right wing. Someone had had the right idea.
My steam-pistol?
He scanned the deck and spotted the second weapon right away. It was teetering on the brink several feet from him, beneath the bulwark. The bird opened its long beak and gave a gutteral caw.
Christ.
Why hadn’t Tangeni pulled Verity up yet? She had to be snagged on something.

Embrey dove for the pistol and fired a snapshot.
Hiss-crack!
The bullet clipped the pterosaur’s snout but didn’t stop it. He could almost drop something onto it at this range. Instead, he took aim and pipped the creature right between its eyes. More shots rang out aft. Some hit. The pterosaur folded its wings, gave a spastic flutter, and then writhed as it fell.

He helped Tangeni and Reardon free the buckle of Verity’s half chaps from a twisted rivet she’d ripped loose from the bulwark post. She was lightheaded when they hauled her aboard. Embrey and Tangeni steadied her while she regained her bearings. The blood had rushed to her head. Her face was almost purple.

“Will you be all right?” he shouted above the pterosaur shrieks and volleys of gunfire. “I need to join the fight.”

She nodded blankly. Tangeni reassured him. “I’ll take it from here. You try and pick them off as they clear the balloons. And get Reardon to take Billy below. This no place for a boy.”

Embrey dashed aft to the quarterdeck. Reardon was already escorting young Billy below—one less problem to solve, at least. All around the ship’s hindmost section, riflemen ducked in sequence to avoid passing pterosaurs and then leapt up in the same order to unleash a volley. He couldn’t speak for their marksmanship, but these African aeronauts were stalwarts. He climbed to the poop deck and took the place of a man who’d bled to death. The three fatal gouges in his chest suggested monstrous talons had gored him. Embrey fired his remaining bullets and then used the dead man’s rifle to pick off the last pterosaur. The other three fliers fled eastward above the geyser clouds, regrettably in perfect formation.

As he helped his injured brothers-in-arms down to sick bay—five were wounded, though not seriously—he met Verity’s gaze on the quarterdeck. Blouse torn and hanging loose, fiery hair licking the breeze, she looked a fright. Yet, unkempt, she was also insanely beautiful, more unreal and more desirable than ever.

The urge to gush his relief pressed hard against the cork in his heart. Surely they couldn’t be enemies after
this.
Their mutual gaze held. An insensible longing to take her in his arms threatened to overpower him. Then he remembered his name.

They exchanged brief nods instead.

What was it with everyone vouching for Lord Embrey like he was some kind of Nelson or Wellington? Yes, he had a knack for being in the right place at the right time, and he was handy with a rifle, but in case they’d all forgotten,
she
had saved
his
life over the side of the ship that afternoon.

“Either you admit him or I say precisely nothing on the subject of time travel,” Reardon protested, arms folded as he sank back in his chair. Her new cabin barely had enough room to seat two guests, so Tangeni had emptied most of Captain Naismith’s belongings and replaced them with three more chairs from the officers’ mess.

“And you already know my opinion.” Tangeni fingered the lieutenant’s insignia on his tunic. “Without Lord Embrey, Professor Reardon would have been hanged and the flying dinosaur would have snatched you for certain.” He turned away. The two men sat in complicit silence, watching the oil lamp.

Marvellous. I’m being bullied by my own personal press-gang!

But at this moment, Reardon and Tangeni were the two most important men to her in London. For the sake of the mission, it behoved her to keep them happy. And after all, her boycott of Embrey was personal. If rescinding it would benefit the plight of the camp…so be it.

“Very well, let him in.” She glared at her first officer but he merely shrugged in reply. Reardon opened the door, called for Embrey. A cool gust brushed her face and made the lamp flame flicker while the handsome blond traitor strolled in.

“Where’s Billy?” Reardon asked his aristocratic comrade.

“Below, eating supper with Kibo and Djimon. The lad’s become quite popular since he pipped the pterosaur.”

“With your steam-pistol, was it not?” Verity seized the chance to segue into civil conversation with him. Ignoring their rancour altogether seemed the only way to proceed. And he looked improbably dashing in the wavering light.

He addressed her briefly, “Yes, ma’am. My pistol.” His glance ricocheted off her. “Reardon, this had better be deuced important. The lads in the fo’c’sle are setting up a game of gin rummy. They fancy they’ll own my estate before morning, while I beg to differ—”

“Oh, you needn’t play gin rummy to count your good fortune, old chap.” Reardon’s subtle rebuke made Verity smile.

“I see. And to what do I owe this privilege?”

“We’re to confer on…all the essentials of our survival,” the professor replied. “Most important, Verity here is eager to know how I plan to return us to our own time.”

Embrey looked up, striking electric sparks in her gaze. “The lady has a healthy curiosity.”

Yes, and the
gentleman
is eyeing my breasts.
She attempted to repel him with a scowl. He continued to watch her, to study her. She cleared her throat, distracting him.

“
Eembu
is thirsty?” Tangeni rose and stood between her and Embrey, perhaps to dispel the awkward moment.

She looked at up at her first officer. “Yes. There’s a kettle of hot water on the sideboard.”

“I know. I gave it to you.”

“Really? Fiddlededee.” She shook her head at how girlish that sounded.

“Tea?”

“No. I’ll have something with a little bite.”

“A posset? I see you have the ingredients already prepared.”

“I do?” She deflected Embrey’s latest questing glance, and gathered herself. “Yes, of course I do.”

“I know. I gave them to you.” Tangeni began whistling tunelessly to himself.

Why, the smug…

Embrey called over to the Namibian, “I’ll have a brandy, my good man—neat, and you can keep the spoilers.”

“I apologize, Lord Embrey. Spoilers?”

Verity sighed and crossed her legs. “He means he just wants the brandy, Tangeni.”

“Ah. Sorry, my English is coming on in leaps and bounds but—”

“I know. I gave it to you.” Verity flicked him a wink, which tickled him no end.

“I will forego my libation,” Reardon interrupted, “if the three of you will desist from this childish parlour game. Good Lord!” His birdlike head pivots, eyeing each of them in turn, reminded Verity more of a flustered headmaster than a scientist whose genius potentially rivalled that of Sir Isaac Newton. “Now, back to the business at hand?”

“Go ahead, old boy. You mustn’t let our parlour game perturb you.” Embrey threw him a wink. “We’re all ears—truly. Look. Tangeni’s are whoppers.”

Verity cleared her throat. “Pray proceed, sir.”

“Very well. Here is what I propose we do.” As Tangeni drew the curtains across the static view of night-time London, Reardon craned his neck and peered high to the southwest, at Big Ben’s clock face. The professor went on, “With the resources at our disposal, we are quite able to restore the giant furnace and steam engine which power my machine. All we require are steady supplies of fuel for the furnace—without petroleum and with little coal, wood will have to suffice—and plenty of water for the boiler. I suggest we dig a well to the fresh water beneath us. Anyone able to wield an axe should be put to cutting trees, preferably in the western forest away from the baryonyx.”

He retrieved a notepad, its pages dry but ruffled by the damp, and a small pencil from his trouser pocket. While scribbling something, he muttered to himself before adding aloud, “You can guarantee my safety while I work in the factory, Verity?”

“I can. As many men as you need.”

“Then by my reckoning, provided the wrench through time didn’t inflict serious damage, and if those materials I mentioned are easily procurable, my machine should be in working order before the week is out.” He licked his fingertip and flicked the page. “However, my Harrison clock requires absolute accuracy. Its primary lens array cannot be damaged in any way. If that is intact, and I am able to initiate the influx and refraction of psammeticum energy, I believe we will have success, ladies and gentlemen—I mean friends,” he corrected himself, lifted his chin proudly, then shut his notebook and put it back in his pocket. “Now, what else would you like to know?”

“What went wrong?” Embrey asked between sips of his brandy. “This talk of recreating the experiment is all well and good but how, for the love of God, did we wind up in the Cretaceous?”

Verity sat up. “Precisely.
That
is our conundrum, Professor. What’s to stop your machine from behaving like a complete arse next time? You say we ought to have travelled back to 1901?” She motioned to the curtain and beyond. “Forgive us if we don’t sprinkle confetti on your record, sir.”

“Fair enough. But what choice is there?” Reardon shrugged one shoulder and held out his hand. “Within the parameters of its design, the machine is as accurate as I can possibly make it. I have no idea whatsoever why it veered so far off course. Interference from the storm perhaps. But the disparity between seven years and a hundred
million
years suggests time itself has some underlying property we have yet to comprehend. Fear not, though—I will divine it soon enough, perhaps after the next jump.”

Embrey scoffed, “Very presumptuous, old boy. And if you don’t mind me saying so, wrongheaded.”

“Which part?”

“Restarting that mechanism without the foggiest idea of where we might end up. We’d be as well to stay here indefinitely—where we
know
there’s food and water, where we have defensible buildings—as fling ourselves onto your temporal roulette again. Who knows when or where we’d find ourselves? Underwater? A billion years into the future? Or further into the past? In Genesis perhaps, inside a piping volcano?”

“Then you stay here, Embrey.” Reardon swatted away the marquess’s protest. “But as soon as my machine is in working order, I am making a second trip. And a third, and however many it takes me to reach 1901. Anyone who wishes to join me is welcome. Anyone else can pick his own grave.”

A cheer from below deck set Verity ill-at-ease. She nervously picked at her nails. Suddenly, the problem was not a scientific one but rather a nebulous, cosmic gamble. Her colleagues had been right to invite Embrey in after all. He was frank and pragmatic. Reardon, on the other hand, now struck her as quite insane—a man railing against the forces that had wronged him in his past. Part Ahab, part Quixote, he was both their only chance of escape
and
their biggest liability.

A serious dilemma faced the camp, and every person would have to decide it for himself; trust Reardon’s machine would work properly this time and return them to the twentieth century, or remain in prehistory forever, find a measure of solace in…whatever one found solacing in a world of bees and dinosaurs.

Her gaze set upon Embrey. He sipped his brandy. A distant roar silenced the cheers below.